classification. We find here the same duality which we noticed above. If we give prominence to the individual notion, we consider the proposition in extension; if we turn our attention to the specific notion we consider the proposition in intention: in the one case referring to the individuals composing the class, in the other to the attributes composing the class-type. The first corresponds to induction, the second to deduction. When we study individuals we study physics; when we study the attributes composing the class-type, we study metaphysics. The Law of Thinking as educed from a study of the proposition is the law of classification. The proposition, considered affirmatively, asserts explicitly agreement between certain attributes of two terms; that is, it asserts a classification. The aim of science is to reach this proposition, to discover and assert the principle of classification—in other words, to formulate metaphysically what nature has presented physically. We must find, then, the first or fundamental law of thinking in this integration or classification. This fundamental law may be subdivided into two species, according to the two terms of the proposition; of which the first may be stated thus: "Every possible object of thought is to a certain extent identical with every other"; and as the proposition implicitly states disagreement, the second may be stated thus: "Every possible object of thought is to a certain extent diverse from every other." The first gives the positive (subjective) condition of the proposition, the second the negative (objective) condition: both together constitute the conditions of thinking. The proposition is thus the assertion of the same in the different. The proposition also asserts, implicitly, the tertium quid, or the basis of classification—the class-type, to which both terms are referred—that is, the proposition secondarily asserts an analysis. According to the first condition we have the inductive process; according to the second we have the deductive process. A complete movement of idea from its purely physical symbolization to its metaphysical interpretation, must involve both these processes.

The mind possesses the power of analysis; it can watch its own operations and retrace its steps, until it arrives at the original data of consciousness; but analysis cannot comprise the whole of the logical process. Before there can be analysis there must be something to be analyzed; before steps can be retraced, they must be taken. We must not confound a condition with a Law—the one is a conception antecedent to all action, a genus to which the particular activity may be referred; the other is coincident with action. The one is the medium of the other. We may illustrate this idea by science itself, which is reached only by an analysis of Art. Matter is the condition of the expression of an idea; hence to all but the artist, Art must precede Science, but this cannot be in the case of the artist; in his mind the Idea is first conceived, and there it is given expression in the forms of Art. Here, as uniformly in Nature, the whole absolutely precedes the part—the universal exists before the particular—God before man. Truth absolute thus exists before truth conditioned. Science before Art. Remove conditions and the conditioned becomes the absolute; art and science coincide. But truth which is assumed to be out of all relations, cannot be comprehended by man, and practically is not. Even the universal propositions of deduction express universality under conditions—that is universality of relation; just as infinity in mathematics means that which passes measurement, while in fact between infinity and measurement there is no relation, and the infinite is thus incomprehensible as an object of thought, although by no means unrecognizable as a necessary condition antecedent to all intellectual action. It is of vital importance that we note this distinction, because reasoning, i. e. classification, is possible only so long as we deal with what is admitted to be under relation: if we assume a term to be out of all relation, it ceases to be an object of thought—it can neither be classified nor unclassified; it is beyond reason. Mathematics can proceed with its investigations only so long as it treats all quantities as measurable; it must wholly cease its calculations if an infinite term be introduced. To claim that analysis represents the complete normal action of the intellect in reasoning, is ultimately to claim that the initial point of thinking is the summum genus of thought—God. Now God is undoubtedly the initial point of absolute thought, but he is not the beginning of human thought. Intellectually speaking, God is the final generalization; every movement possible to him must be one of analysis—a differentiation of Himself, so to speak, by negatives. Thus the course of absolute Thought, beginning with God, must be first towards a complete differentiation into ultimate individualization; and lastly a complete integration again of individuals into an infinite whole. This dual action completes the circle of intellectual activity. We have dropped attribute after attribute until we have reached the last possible analysis; but we do not stop here, but by the assumption of attributes we again reach the highest possible synthesis. This must be the method of the divine activity, successive differentiation and integration, the closing in of a mighty circle of infinity, embracing all the finite, but never losing the essential characteristic of the infinite.

Now, if this also represent the exact movement of the finite mind in action—that is, in reasoning, man must be God. Man is finite. Even his infinite is only the immeasurable—not that which is without the category of measure. He cannot begin where the Infinite begins, at the highest possible generalization,—but he must begin with the finite. If what we have shown above be true, man must begin with the individual, and the first mental act of the positive character of thinking, is the reference of this individual notion to a class. Now the class-notion is the same as the individual notion, less certain attributes as individual attributes, but gathered into a larger whole. This process is plainly integration; we are rejecting from the new conception whatever prevents enlarging the class. Each higher generalization involves all the attributes of the lower, not individually, but specifically or generically. In the final generalization, extension and intension coalesce. Just as we reach the individual by differentiating a universal through successive negations, we reach the universal again, by integration, by successively denying the negations through which we just now differentiated. The movement of the finite mind in reasoning is thus from the individual through the universal to the individual again.

Science thus parts into two great branches—one seeking to establish principles by what we have called integration, and the other the elucidation of facts by a priori reasoning instead of observation. That is, the aim of true science is to free man from the restrictions of the finite, and to place him in possession of the infinite—the closing in of a lesser circle of infinite truth, yet never losing hold upon the finite. In accordance with this view we see science pursuing its integrations until it has identified as composing an essential unity all the various manifestations of force. This is the finite becoming the infinite, for unity is, in so far, infinity—God is one, a unity, not a unit. But we also see science going beyond this point, and by a new series of differentiations reaching truths new to experience, if indeed not impossible to experience.

Between these two limits all knowledge is forever moving. It can never rest.